“The fact that the creator of the horror genre is celebrated as a proponent of sexual liberation indicates that our culture still does not understand horror. If our culture could make up its mind about sexual liberation, it would not need horror. It would either embrace sexual license wholeheartedly, as Mary’s husband did, or repudiate …
Candidates and Incumbents
“Put another way, the widespread neglect of elder qualifications certainly trivializes an office which the Bible says should be held in honor. But willingness to remove elders too quickly can have the same result. A young woman considering a suitor may legitimately decline his attentions for (comparatively) minor reasons. Those same reasons are not sufficient …
When Missing by a Hair Means Missing by a Mile
“There is one other general point I would emphasise here before we leave this matter of the content of the sermon; and that is that we are to preach the Gospel, and not to preach about the Gospel. That is a very vital distinction, which one cannot easily put into words, but which is nevertheless …
Self-Authenticating Ultimacy
“Hence the late-romantic tendency to insist on a total separation between the aesthetic and the moral; and finally the modernist tendency to grant art the ultimate legitimacy and authority that were previously reserved for morality” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 389).
It Shouldn’t Be Either
“Jesus tells us that the hireling does not care for the sheep the way a good shepherd does. In saying this, the Lord was teaching in effect that the ministry cannot be allowed to become a profession. Despite this severe warning, the modern Church has steadily drifted into a compromise with what we might call …
Never Disoriented
“In other words the preachers should be well versed in biblical theology which in turn leads on to a systematic theology. To me there is nothing more important in a preachers than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body …
Let’s Do the Lurch
“. . . it is hard not to see a dance floor as a paddock for musical philistines” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 383).
Show Them How
“Those who preach the Lordship of Christ must always see that the message is preached by men who are bondslaves to the hearers for the Lord’s sake. Those who want the members of the church to submit to them must have shown them through their own behavior what submission looks like” (Mother Kirk, p. 183).
Preaching Because We Were Told To
“In other words, the content of the sermon is what is called in the New Testament ‘The Word’. ‘Preach the word’, or ‘preach the Gospel’, or ‘the whole counsel of God.’ That being interpreted means the messiage of the Bible, the message of the Scriptures” (Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 61).
Now There’s a Thought
“The abiding weaknesses of country music are two: love of sentimental cliché, rooted in its turn-of-the-century link with Tin Pan Alley, and fear of polyrhythm, rooted in white racism” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, pp. 380).